Wednesday, April 3, 2013

A Visible Primary

I
know that the focus of this blog is to investigate the Invisible Primary, the run-up
to the real presidentials where candidates vie for media, mindfulness, and
money. At times, however, when circumstances demand it, we have to veer off
course and pay attention to a very real (and visible) primary election in order
to more fully understand the political climate of our beloved IP.

And
so our eyes turn to South Carolina, where (sigh) disgraced former Governor Mark
Sanford has belied all of my predictions (sigh) and won the GOP special primary
run-off election to fill the vacated 1st congressional district.

Sigh.

To
avoid a serious case of solipsism, I will not write endlessly about how I wrote this should never happen. Instead, I want to take a peek at the reasons Sanford
won and the impact this win might have on Republican politics writ large.

First
things first - the comeback kid. To recap events, just in case you weren’t
paying attention the first time: When Mark Sanford was Governor of South
Carolina in 2009 he disappeared over Father’s Day weekend, his security detail
couldn’t find him, and his office staffers said he was hiking the Appalachian
Trail. Turns out he was in Argentina visiting a woman-not-his-wife and when he finally
returned all hell broke loose. Sanford kept his job, lost his wife, and gained
a fiancé when the Argentinian lady came to the states and set up shop. He is currently
on his political redemption tour, which apparently includes running for
Congress. Voila: You are up to speed. So how the hell did Sanford win the
primary? Well, it was a crowded field that was so crowded; a run-off was
mandated because no one won a majority of the vote. Sanford is now pitted against Elizabeth Colbert Busch (comedian Stephen Colbert’s sister) in the special election to be held in May. She has money, momentum, and name
recognition, and there’s a very real chance she will win.

But
South Carolina’s political flavor plays a big role here. The Palmetto State is
red, red, red. The State Legislature and Governor’s Mansion are occupied by
Republicans, and of the state’s seven US House members, only one (James
Clyburn) is a Democrat. So there’s that. Also: Redistricting. Lonce and Chris
have both addressed how redistricting plays important roles in shaping the
election map, and so I will instruct our readers to look down-blog a bit for
more info on this. Suffice it to say here, SC-1 is a very conservative
district, one that Sanford himself represented before, one that has been
redrawn to be even more right-leaning. In 2012, Mitt Romney won the district by
18 points. So it seems natural that a Republican would win (easily) here. BUT, you
put this into the larger national conversation about the future of the GOP and there
emerges a hitch in the giddy-up. Folks at the federal level are worried about losing this seat, and this brings us to the nationalization of this race and
the tie-in to the IP environment.

As
stated in an earlier posting, the GOP is up against a narrative that it is
anti-immigrant, anti-poor, and anti-woman. Since Sanford’s fiancé is from
Argentina, we will assume that he is pro-immigration, but since he humiliated
his wife in the process of finding his true love there is a very decent chance
the women’s vote is in play. Sanford tried to mitigate this damage by asking his ex-wife to run his new congressional campaign, a maneuver that undoubtedly made
women everywhere say “Wait. Whaaaaa?” as they banged their heads against their
desks.

Sigh.

Colbert
Busch went immediately on the offensive launching ads after Sanford’s run-off win
that accused him of being untrustworthy and anti-woman. This is a narrative
that could not only gain traction against Sanford, but could also play a more considerable
role in the national GOP. No one in the South Carolina delegation has endorsed
Sanford, an indication of his unpopularity and of the baggage he would bring
with him to the Republican Party. Apparently, national GOP figures are asking Sen.
Tim Scott, who was appointed to the Senate and thus coughed up the SC-1 House
seat, to endorse Sanford. But in 2009, Scott signed a letter that asked for
Sanford to resign, saying Sanford’s actions had “reveal[ed] a pattern of poor decision making and questionable leadership.” Whoops.

And herein ties the SC primary race
to the present conundrum of the GOP: The voters want candidates to stand for
something, and to back up these stands with consistency and action. When the
GOP says it is going to be the Kinder Gentler Party (version 2.0) and its
representatives use terms like “wetbacks,” something smells amiss. Similarly, when
GOP candidates and officials call for family values, I do not think they are calling
for multiple families or situational values. I could be wrong about that. I am confident,
however, that the party needs to appeal to a larger swath of the voting public,
and seeming wishy-washy on their stands and
on their beliefs ain’t gonna cut it.

Sanford is, wisely, trying to frame
this fight as a battle between a fiscal conservative and a tax-and-spend
liberal, but Colbert Busch’s business experience may stymie that narrative. The
Republicans, who are now positioning themselves for the 2014 midterms and the
2016 show, are keeping an eye on this race because it may prove to be a bellwether
of things to come.

It is also fairly well certain that our
Invisible Primary contenders will be watching the race to see if personal
foibles actually do lasting political damage in our hyper-partisan,
overly-mediated climate. As we navigate the unchartered media waters these
things are, apparently, undetermined. Just a warning shot: If this portends a 2016 Weiner run, I’m outta here.

1 comment:

On Weiner: the only good reason I can see for a comeback would be to give the biopic more material to work with. About the whole politics thing, yeah not so much. Although you could have some great Capitol Cafeteria moments with Weiner and Mr. Appalachian Trail sitting together to discus "policy" (Season 2 of "House of Cards" anyone?)

In all seriousness, I assume Sanford will win because of the overwhelming GOP nature of the district, but this is a good polisci test case in terms of if partisan identity really does override everything, or if it has it limits. We shall wait and see.